


Dear Jehan

by bliteorum



Series: In The House of Halone [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 15:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17604164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bliteorum/pseuds/bliteorum
Summary: the first few pages of the unmarked and unremarkable blue book are moldy and stiff from moisture damage, and smell faintly of some sort of flower.(the daily life of a lowerclass ishgardian woman, recorded in an account-book. a quiet story about grief, loss, and living through the end of the Dragonsong War)





	Dear Jehan

Dear Jehan,

Found an old account-book over the sill; another present you’d left me, I suppose? I didn’t cry when I found it, like when I found the bolt of cloth in the back of the cupboard. The book didn’t smell like you anymore, not six years gone, but it _is_ my favorite shade of blue, and I would remember it if I had bought it. I will treasure it.

Besides, it seems more sensible to write my nonsense in one place, as opposed to all over the backs of old tally sheets when I have a little wine and get sentimental. Well. When I _had_ wine. Good wine. Lady, it’s been a long time. Now I am merely sentimentally sober.

— 

Dear Jehan,

I found a crocus in the snow today, in the alley behind the garbage pile. This is a week of unexpected gifts, it seems.

It sits on the table, now, reminding me of spring. I think you would have tucked it into my braids, and mussed them beyond repair.

I miss you, even still.

— 

They took the Savatiers away, last night. I did not watch, but I heard her cries through the shutters. The whole street did. I heard the clanging of the gauntlet that silenced her, and her head against the plaster wall. In the morning, the Fury’s sigil was painted on the door, in white.

Lady save us all. I will not go out today.

—

Dear Jehan,

A week of creeping around not meeting anyone’s eyes. We all know one of us sent the Savatiers to the inquisitors’ cells, and there is a stillness in the air; even the children are blessedly quiet, or quietly hushed. It seems like one of the old mummers’ plays— before the inquisitors took the loudest mummers to the cells. All the street silent, pious, and watchful. The Fury's hall was full at week-end for sermons, and every tithe paid timely.

The coming saint’s-day would normally put cheer in everyone’s step, but our joys are well-muted.

—

Dear Jehan,

Spent the day cleaning, making ready. Avoiding the windows. Cooking the endless soup. You’d make a face to taste it; I haven’t anyone to bring me spices, these days. Or tea, with southern bite. Not since the snows came.

I have pressed the crocus, after it wilted. The book smells faintly of mold, now, and my earlier entries are likely ruined. I care not. It seemed a shame to simply leave it on the trash heap.

—

Dear Jehan,

I think I dreamed— not of you, really, but of the fish. You’d come back from the highlands, proud as can be, carrying a great stinking fish, and I’d wrap it in lemon and thyme and bake it in the coals. It smelled dreadful, and the bones caught in my teeth, but you loved pinching off the crusted skin.

I wish for lemons, and fish, and fine southern tea, and you, always, you.

—

Dear Jehan,

Saint Laniesse’s day today. I made flower-circles with the other mothers, using worn brown paper for our flowers. I remember the one I made for you, of lilies and sage and bellblooms. You looked a mighty fool in it, but you wore it with pride, ribbon and all, and no one knocked it off you in the tussling after the ceremony. But that was no saint’s-day.

This saint’s-day was a sad affair; the children crowned Janenoux the lord of spring, and he rode around the square on the miller’s donkey, bell ringing the whole way. The wives, and I, shared what we had, but it was poor enough fare; soup, hard bread, harder cheese. A popoto, if one was lucky. I think of past feasts a little wistfully; tarts and cider and fresh fruits. But those of us who have prosperity fear to show it, with the Savatiers ever on our minds; those without it have precious little to share.

Still, it had folk talking, and gossiping, and laughing by the end of the day. It wasn’t much, but— it was enough.

To bed with me, now.

—

Dear Jehan,

A long, wearisome, tiresome day. The snows are very deep, and I wish for wine.

 —

Dear Jehan,

Spent the day in bed. Days? I haven’t the strength. It is dark, and cold, and the bed is warm.

 —

Dear Jehan,

What passes for spring has come, and with it, slush rather than deep drifts. I chortle like a hag, at my own delight. Spring? This is still winter. There’s naught but winter.

I have made diligent efforts to be out, be seen, and be at service, after my bout of bedridden days. Everyone was very forgiving, and kind. They see that I still wear your ring on a loop around my neck, and do not speak too harshly to me, even now. For a time, I can feign that I am tragic, rather than slovenly, or mad.

—

Dear Jehan,

A handful of days of cooking, mending, cleaning. I fall into bed too exhausted to write, and with nothing in particular to say.

The markets are barren, and there was another few sleepless nights as the wyverns batter at the walls; but that is as it should be, of course. Folk talk, and gossip, and the wives of the street share recipes for thinner and thinner broths. It’s as if we’ve all chosen to forget the Savatiers— and Immi and Reverre and Gaustian and Humebault and every other door painted white with the Fury’s sign in the morning. We forget. I forget. I find this account-book-turned-journal reminds me of them, in ways I sometimes wish I was not reminded.

I do not want to wonder whether our neighbors— my neighbors— sent the Savatiers to the cells, or if they were simply terribly, terribly unlucky. I put my head down, and try to believe it was merely the latter.

It is a heresy to write the names of heretics, to remember them. A small one, but a sin is a sin. It is enough to send me to the cells, I’m sure, should someone find this— and realize what it says, of course. Not many on our street can read. Still, I have begun to keep careful track of where I keep this book, when I am not in the rooms.

I cannot forget. I will not. So I must be cautious.

—

Dear Jehan,

Spent the day mending, mending, mending. My fingers cramp on the needle, and my vision blurs. But it is a little more, a pittance more. There is nothing to buy with it, but when I grow frenzied, it calms me to think of buying passage out, beyond the walls, through the snows. It is a fool’s dream, and would be my death, but as hopes go, it is better than nothing. I may eke by on your Temple pension, but a little more coin under the floorboard beneath my bed helps me sleep easier.

As easy as I can, with the bombardment. I am forever grateful we did not take rooms closer to the walls. Bless you for listening when I was sharp with you about it.

The murmurs say that the aevis flock in the highlands, that the war will be worse, soon. I cannot imagine a war worse than this. I am afraid.

—

Dear Jehan,

Bad dreams last night.

—

Dear Jehan,

Mariselle gave me a hard little plum today; I nearly cried. It has been so long since I had anything of flavor. I vowed her daughter’s veil would be talked of for generations when I was finished making it. She laughed, and said she would make sure mine was, when I took a new husband.

When. Not if.

The people of the street do not remember you. You have been put aside on the dusty shelf. Not with the heretics, no, with the saints and martyrs— but it is a dusty shelf all the same. There is no question if I will take a new husband; only _when_ I will set aside your ring and do it.

It disquiets me.

—

Dear Jehan,

A mending day. The wind was blessedly less sharp through the shutters. Clemmeis came visiting, to bring hard bread and gossip. It seems the wyverns are massing off on the cliff shoulders. The ballista families are run ragged trying to keep the barrage up.

We played at confidence while we sewed, Clemmeis and I, that victory was assured. We are of Ishgard; it is our duty.

—

Dear Jehan,

Service today was as usual; we must not let Their fangs nip us, we must not let Their tails coil about our hearts. We must be brave, and strong, and lift our lances upward in Her name, for we all have a lance of our own to carry. And as Her soldiers, we must always tell Her priests if we suspect our friends have grown soft and weak and been gutted like ripe peaches with the enemy’s lies.

I wonder how you would see our city, now. I wonder how you would sit in service, as they railed against heresy on every corner, in every home, behind the teeth of every friend. We— you, and I— were born in peace, and raised in war. How different would the world have been if we were born just a few years later? How different would it be if I had never seen Coerthas green and new? Would I be happier? Would I rail less?

The bitter worm in my heart says we were cursed, given enough of paradise to long for it always, and then condemned to Her special hell of ice.

Forgive me. I am deeply out of sorts. There are many things that weigh heavy on my heart, and no one to speak of them to. Save you— save this book of yours.

—

Dear Jehan,

I dreamed of a meadow, wide and green and fresh. I smelled the grass.

I woke weeping. My lips are cracked with cold, always. My knuckles ache. My hands curl like a crone’s. I bend and creak from every joint.

I refuse to break. I refuse. I will see the end of this, one way, or another.

—

Woke early, to banging on the shutters. There are dragons at the gate, tearing through the Collar. We are only middling-far from the danger, for now, but an alert has been called; the sergeant said as much. I do not know him; a young lad, yellow-haired. I cannot remember his name. I wonder what happened to Vanielle.

I will take refuge within the church. If I am to die, they will work for it.

—

Church is crowded so tight, and babes are crying. I almost wish—

No, to write that blasphemy here would be tempting fate. I’ll bite my sharp words back. We are alive, after all.

—

I take it back. I wish I had been eaten by dragons. I would willinging drink blood to be free of the endless crying.

—

I volunteered to help with the refectory cooking, just to stand and shake my skirts out. I am, even now, sitting with my book and my neat little charcoal stick, and scribbling out a handful of words as the bread bakes.

But the crying is, at least, muted over the burble of the cauldron and the snap of the stove. Small favors. The smallest, perhaps. 

The dragons burst through most of the Collar, enough to batter the walls themselves, before they were stopped. Jeanaux’s sister says there was a great wyrm— no aevis, no wyvern, but a true dragon— barreling down the causeway, and that it was only stopped at immense price. It will take years to repair the damage, the masons’ wives were saying.

I wish I could take glory in it, revel in it. I am merely sad, and tired, and stiff. I want to go home.

—

Dear Jehan,

A week cramped in the church cellar, as the dragons were driven off. The sisters sent me home with a basket of bread, and— miraculous!— butter. I have not had butter in… longer than I care to recall. It will be treasured, however dearly it was bought with stiff, sleepless nights.

As cold as my hearth is, I am glad to return to it.

—

Dear Jehan,

The streets are more lively than I would expect; folk are eager to be home, out of hiding, with their families. I lean on the sill and watch them come and go. I can feel the tide ebbing melancholy, but there is naught to do but simply bear it.

I delivered a fine coat today, postponed until we could return to our homes, and received a lovely sum in return. It cheered me considerably. Perhaps I will unbend, and buy some new cloth.

—

Dear Jehan, 

Mariselle’s daughter is to be wed at week-end, and we are all furious with commotion to finish it. Her beau has been assigned to Dragonhead, after the attack on the Steps, and she fears for him; the wedding should have been the work of months, but she will not let him go without giving him her ring. Poor girl. I would tell her not to fear, but— it would be quite hollow in my mouth.

Where she found an artichoke to give him— I will never know. Then again, I suppose Mariselle has someone to bring her spice and tea and plums, and artichokes are more common fare than that. I remember the one I gave to you when we were courting, grown in the little scratched out hill-garden. When Coerthas was green.

Our—

Children of our new time will never know such luxury. It makes my heart ache.

Still. She is lovely, Mariselle’s daughter, with long ears and dark hair. She will look a vision in her mother’s gown, and with this veil. I will take a time from mending after this, I think. My knuckles ache horribly.

—

Dear Jehan,

The wedding was a great contrivance, but there were more plums. I took three, and a fourth in my skirt pocket. If they are the wiser, they let it be. Where Mariselle gets them, I will never know; she gets cat-wiley whenever anyone mentions it.

My hands hurt too much too write. I shall boil water and soak them as long as I can bear it.

—

Dear Jehan,

A long week of patient soaking, and my hands will finally unbend. It still hurts to write— but I find I miss it. This book has become a welcome friend to listen to my many woes, in lieu of your shoulder.

It would be foolish to deny I thought of you, of us, watching Mariselle’s dark-haired daughter dance a turn with her brass-haired beau. They are so young, and she smiled so broad when he lifted her and swung her around. I wish I could remember your hands at my waist, but all I can recall is the smell of flowers, and how your beard scratched.

It is precious little, and I fear I lose more every day. How did you whistle? Was it high, or low? Have I painted grey into your hair that was never there?

Or am I merely imagining what I wish, rather than remembering anything at all? How much of you is truly you, now? How much of you is my wishes for a time and a place that are not here, not now? How much of the you is a memory cut clean of all its messy corners, and pinned until it sits just _so_ , just the way I want to remember it?

I do not know. I fear to dwell too deeply on it.

—

Dear Jehan,

An out of sorts day. I started many things, finished nothing. Service was— not worth writing of. The same song, the same story. I am weary to death of feigning attentive prayer, but I am too-aware of what happens to those that don’t. 

Half of the sisters’ butter remains, and I hoard every sliver. I still have the plums, from the wedding. When they are gone, I will truly despair.

—

Dear Jehan,

I went out today, made my rounds, inquired after health. The goodwives were very kind, as always, and my wormy heart goes unnoticed still.

I saw some fabric in the market; a nice, clean cream. It would sit well against the ink-blue bolt you left for me.

It is a terror to think of shedding my black, but it has been near six years. I have never worried you would care; if anything, you would pinch my ear and tell me I was being a bird’s ass for waiting so long. I know— I believe— you would see me happy, not hiding in mourning.

But I fear forgetting. I fear when I take off my mourning-dress, I will slough the last piece of you away.

But, I wonder. Is it _you_ I fear shedding, or the dream-memory of a better place, a better when, that I've put your name to?

I think, even so... if the dragons batter down the gates tomorrow and the aevis pour in, I would not want to meet you in the clothes I buried you in.

I will go back for it tomorrow.

—

Dear Jehan,

It has been a challenge, making a dress for myself. By myself. Taking my own measurements without your aid was difficult, and the length of knotted cord was dismaying. I shrink daily; someday, there will be nothing left. Then again, I'm grateful. There is no need to stick squirming brides with pins, I simply measure and cut and sew.

In a few weeks, it will be done, and I will have a new dress. I feel…

I am unsure. Perhaps I will make it, and sell it. I do not know if I am ready to wear it, yet.

—

Woke again in the night; unrest in the streets. No one will say aught about it. I huddled by the candle, writing as long as I dare. I will scrape up the courage to braid my hair and go out asking. If the dragons have burst the Collar again, we are surely dead.

—

Heretics, in the city. Not the quiet kind. Burning things, or so Clemmeis claimed. I don’t believe her. Heretics might burn the city, but Clemmeis would be the last to know.

—

Dear Jehan,

There was an attack, of some kind. No one seems sure exactly what, or who. I hear the word “heretic” enough that it loses all meaning, but I suppose the true heretics are responsible. 

It gives me pause, in uncomfortable ways. What is a heretic, if the Savatiers were heretics? What is a heretic, when they take they were taken away in the night simply for not paying tithe or attending service or smiling bright enough? If there are _heretics_ who are truly worth rooting out, destroying, not simple folk with the bad luck to be noticed?

I do not know.

I wish not to think on it.

—

Dear Jehan,

I ate the last plum today, and tossed the stone from the walls. I wish I had enough hope left to plant it in the courtyard and hope it will grow to bear more fruit, but even I cannot muster the faith that would take. I long to lay in bed. Instead, I sew the ink-blue dress.

It is very cold today, and I am beset with melancholy. Would you were here to pinch my ear.

—

Dear Jehan,

I make steady progress on The Dress. I can only think of it like that. The Dress. It has come to be some kind of… something. I think about burning it, impulsively, but I have spent too many hours stitching it, and turned down too much mending work, to not finish. After I finish, perhaps I’ll burn it. And the neighbors will rattle my shutters as the smoke pours out and then call to the basilica for the ostiaries to drag me out and try me for dark magic.

I fear to change. I fear to be different than I was, lest you not know me when next we meet. I fear that there is nothing beyond death, and that my hopes are as withered as the crocus pressed in these pages.

—

Dear Jehan,

I took time away from the dress today, to visit the chapel outside of service. It was quiet, and dark, and allowed me to collect my racing thoughts.

It made me miss the time when Her words were balm to my heart. I wish it was not a matter of course to attend service, because your neighbors would look askance if you didn’t, but one of joy. I wish to celebrate Her glory and Her strength, not…

Whatever it is we celebrate now.

Has She changed, or have I fallen away from Her grace? Did I truly believe, when I was young, or were the teachings gentler, somehow?

I went home settled, but with some unquiet questions.

—

Dear Jehan,

I walked today, again, helped Mariselle with her mending, talked. Idle things, of no great note. Her daughter’s beau has gone to Dragonhead. I admit, I’m relieved he survived the heretic assaults on the city. It seems there has been a brief respite, because the ballista families have made rounds. The bodice is finished, the skirt progresses, and now I am for bed.

—

Dear Jehan,

It is times like these I wish for you. I wish you would sweep in before full dark, snow on you cloak, mud on your boots, and kiss me soundly before I could chide you. I wish you would stand behind me, hands on my shoulders, pressing me down to the seat as you looked over my shoulder. I wish you were here to unbraid my hair for me, shoo my hands away when I tried to help, and kiss my neck, my ears. I wish you were here to take my sewing from my hands and draw me up, out of my seat, and into the city, across the district to the wall, to show me the stars. I wish you would chide me for how I hold my pen, and how slovenly I dip my ink.

I fear when I discard my mourning, I will cease to wish for you. It is a silly, childish fear, but it eats at my guts till I feel ill with it. I do not want to forget. I do not want to relegate you to the dusty shelf of martyrs. I wish to have your name beside mine for the rest of my life, till She takes me in Her hand from this star.

I wish for _you_.

—

Dear Jehan,

The dress is finished. I put the last stitches in it today. It is cream and blue, and modestly cut. The fabric is strong and well-dyed, but not finely made. No one will mistake me for anything but what I am: a simple woman.

I have worn it in the rooms, but not outside yet. I will have to, soon, as I have been shuttered for a few days finishing it. I will have to wear it out.

At least I will have your ring, always. I will owe Vanielle a debt until the end of days for bringing it home with her.

—

Dear Jehan,

I went to the market today, with my new dress. I felt naked, not wearing the heavy black mourning, but… only Mariselle seemed to notice. It was… strange.

She congratulated me on it, on stepping out— and on the dress, its construction, its color. But she was happy enough to talk of her daughter when I shifted the subject nervously.

I wept, thought of burning it, nearly couldn’t finish the final hemming. But the world is indifferent, or, indifferent enough. No one winked, looked askance, or asked after my husband. They all know, in the market at the end of the lane, who I am. I don’t know why I thought they would forget when I changed my dress.

It is… oddly cheering. How I clothe myself does not matter a whit. I am still me, and I still wish for you with all my heart.

—

Dear Jehan,

There is some commotion among the garrison. Patrols are no longer regular, only coming every few hours, if at all. Sometimes there are several in a group, and sometimes none. I haven’t seen the yellow-haired sergeant since he knocked on my shutter.

The ballistas are back at full tilt, firing through the night.

—

Dear Jehan,

Mending day. Nothing to write. How do people put holes in their collars?

—

Dear Jehan,

I crave tea, badly, but it cannot be bought for any price, not in our market. I am almost desperate enough to try the Crozier, but I fear being shunted out as a vagabond. New dress or no, I am clearly lower-city.

Aside from dozing and thinking of tea I cannot have, I accomplished very little, besides some washing, a little mending, and of course, the endless soup-cooking.

—

Dear Jehan,

More unrest. It seems there is a… coup? I cannot say. I don’t put store in rumors like that; we usually wake to find the people who spread them have the Fury’s sigil on their doors the next morning. But it is curious. The patrols remain irregular.

—

Dear Jehan,

There are a curious band of folks that have joined the patrols; in leathers, with metal pouches on their hips. They swagger like thugs, but without the leering. I am not sure what to make of them, so I simply hurry by, and keep my eyes down. I am afraid to offend them— and afraid to be associated with them. The sound of Reille Savatier screaming as an iron fist hit her mouth is the only warning I need.

Still, they do not bother me, or the other wives. That is more than can be said of the garrison, at times.

—

Dear Jehan,

The strange folk remain, and the garrison patrols have ceased, for now. The streets are quiet. I do not know how the ballistas fare, but I suspect they are pushed to their limits, if the sound is anything to go by.

I have a small basket of mending. I will stay in the next few days, and see it finished.

—

Dear Jehan,

There was a _dragon_ in the _city. A dragon!_

Greeted by Lord Aymeric!

Not one that burst through the gates, not one that broke the Collar— one that landed! With permission! The ballistas have gone quiet, completely silent.

It beggars belief. Everyone talks of it, but no one has anything substantial to say. I cannot make heads nor tails of it.

The whole city holds its breath.

—

Dear Jehan,

I… I am—

They say the Enchiridion is a lie. The whole thing, the whole way through. Haldrath, Thordan, Shiva… the twelve… it is staggering. The word has swept the city like a gale, passing from house to house. I can hear the family above in heated discussion even now.

I didn’t believe it when Clemmeis told me, because her suppositions are too wild to credit. But then Mariselle came to share the same story, and Finnea, and Reinatte, and Laurelleis…

And the ballistas have stopped firing. I don’t— I can’t remember the last time the ballistas stopped firing.

I don’t know what to think. I will sleep on it.

—

Dear Jehan,

A few hectic days have come and gone. I could not keep track if I had tried. Against myself, I kept with Mariselle, trying to hear all I could of the story.

I do not know if it is all true, or merely a pretext for a shift in control. You would pinch my ear for being so cynical, but I have lived with my face turned down for too long to trust the people who rule us. Besides; I think you might agree.

All I know is that the inquisition has been curtailed, and there is to be no new Thordan. There is talk of a… a House for _all_ of Ishgard’s people. A House of Commons.

It feels like a dream I forgot to wake from.

—

Dear Jehan,

There were riots. I should have guessed, really. Of course there would be riots. None near us— but enough to set all the shutters on the street closed, all the doors barred. The market down the way is silent.

I still cannot quite fathom this new truth we are to believe. I am afraid to think it. The chapel has been shuttered for the whole week. The sisters do not come out, and no one goes in. Now they are the ones we are afraid to associate with.

I am afraid I will wake, and find the streets washed with the Fury’s sigil, and hear no voices. I fear the inquisitors have set us a trap, and have yet to spring it. I have no idea what to believe.

—

Voices in the night. I fear for myself, and huddle beneath the table with a blanket. There is light through the cracks, reflected on the walls; I hear angry talk, angry words, smell smoke and fire. All I have is a candle, and this book.

My hand shakes too much to write.

—

Dear Jehan,

The streets are full of trash, and debris, even far from the walls as we are. The riots even reached here, in the night; that would be the shouting, the angry words. It was the work of the morning lifting and carrying and cleaning to get my stoop back to the way it should be.

After that, a quiet day. Well. “Quiet,” meaning that I spent the rest of it in bed, after I exhausted myself carrying broken planks from my stoop to the trash-heap.

—

Dear Jehan,

You would be in utter despair, if you saw the market now. After the riots, they had a burning. Not heretics; now they burn great piles of books, stacks of them, anything they could lay hands on.

I keep this book in my sewing basket, with no little fear that it will be found and summarily tossed on a pyre. No great loss of learning, but a very great loss to me.

I would fear for the primers and recipes and almanacs you collected for me, and the one, wonderful atlas, but— those were sold long since, to buy costly things like butter, or my new knife.

To think, I once feared being burned a heretic for writing unpious thoughts in this book. Now I fear being marked a loyalist merely for having it.

—

Dear Jehan,

Streets are quiet today, blessedly. No burnings, no riots. Not near our street, anyway, which is all I can ask.

Did not quite feel brave enough to make rounds, so settled in to finish the hemming of a skirt.

—

Dear Jehan,

Woke this morning with a furious energy I cannot rightly explain. I have not felt this sort of fire in— well, in years. I put on my oldest dress, rolled back my sleeves, and gave the rooms the best cleaning they’ve seen since the snows came.

Washed all the linens and hung them through the courtyard, shook out the rugs, washed the floors, remade the straw mattress, re-arranged the table to sweep beneath, gutted the lantern of wax, washed the sooty walls and hearth till the brick was bare. I have burned this strange kindling to ash, and my legs and arms ache, but I feel… renewed.

—

Dear Jehan,

Woke, made pauper-bread, left it to rise. Bones hurt. Back hurts. Back to bed again.

—

Dear Jehan,

Better today. Had a little bread, and the ever-boiling soup, and sat looking out over the street. Listened to people _whistle_ , and sing and argue. It was…

Well. It was welcome. It was relief. I felt the bitter worm around my heart uncoil, just a little. We are not so truly lost, after all. No matter what heaving changes the world undergoes, we can weather it.

—

Dear Jehan,

Finally felt restored, after my furious vigor. Visited Mariselle today, for the news. She is the reliable source of gossip; for salacious stories, one visits Clemmeis. Nothing said was worth writing, but being near friendly faces was its own reward.

—

Dear Jehan,

In spite of everything, the snow persists. In a way, it is a comfort. If I am cold and miserable with aching hands, this cannot be a dream. Can it?

The ballistas have resumed firing; I am told the dragons have politics of their own, and some persist, while others resist.

I want to snort. Dragon politics. Do they elect a dragon chancellor?

I can almost believe it. A world where the church doors are nailed shut, and we talk openly of heresy. A dragon chancellor would fit perfectly into such a world.

—

Dear Jehan,

When Mariselle came to my door to whisper it, I wanted to laugh. Almost.

The ballista families are working round the clock again. Not just manning the guns to keep the straggling wyrms at bay; they are organizing shifts to counter an _assault_. Whatever dragon chancellor, or dragon parliament, drives their movements, they are no longer cowed. Our respite is over.

I don’t know why I expected anything else. A street of singing, whistling, jostling people does not a peace-time make. It’s simply a lull between volleys.

—

Dear Jehan,

The garrison— and the irregulars, for that matter— are openly training in the squares. I saw them on my way from picking through what poor fare our market can offer. There is no pretense that the war is over, anymore, nowhere to go to hide from it.

Mariselle’s daughter’s brass-haired beau was recalled from Dragonhead for— for some purpose. _Perhaps leave of duty to celebrate?_ we thought, she and I. _Perhaps a child?_

It’s clearer now that it was no happy occasion.

—

Dear Jehan,

So it begins in earnest, whatever movement the garrison is massing to meet. I woke to a hard metal rap at my door this morning. A lieutenant, with her arms full of arming-jackets and trou and longpants. A large order with a quick turn, she said. And more where that came from.

It’s strange. I am bitter, and miserly, and cold, now, but this? This feels almost like a relief. It was frightening to teeter on the edge of change. War is familiar and easy and worn down at the seams. I know war too well. Peace is the animal I fear to let in.

But I haven’t the time or candles to write. I have mending to do.

—

Dear Jehan,

I have been awash with mending and fixing and patching, courtesy of the brusque lieutenant and her gaggle of soliders. I am no armorer to fix their mail, but I am well-trained to fix the holes in arming-coats. They are so young, and their armor is too big; when I ask the harried courier lads and lasses where they came from, the answer is something like, “Well, it was my mother’s…”

As much of the world has changed, some things stay the same.

While no one has said as such, even still, it is clear to everyone that there is something coming. The wyverns have resumed their assault on the walls with brutal force, and the garrison has put out a call for every able body. The square rings night and day with the clang of training blows. It feels familiar, if not exactly comfortable.

—

Dear Jehan,

The market is utterly barren. I came home with a popoto and a sack of chaff and corn I wouldn’t feed to a chicken, for a price that staggers me.

My eyes swim, and my neck aches from bending, but there’s more mending to be done.

—

The walls shake. The ground shakes. I can feel the stones grinding together. The ballistas scream, even so far from the walls as we are. As I am. I am. You are not here, and I wish you were, I wish there was someone to hold me, to tell me _we will be all right, my love,_ but there is no one and nothing but the screaming metal and dull roars of beasts.

If there is anything beyond the end, I hope I will find you there, my love.

—

Dear Jehan,

The Steps were shattered, in the night, but the gates held. I do not know quite what to believe, but… I am _told_ it was Himself, the great wyrm, the Enemy of enemies, the dark eye. It seems… preposterous.

I do not have a scale to measure this; anything I try to hold it against bends under its weight. What can I do but laugh? We are beyond any scripture, any guide. There is no chart— but that means there is no way to veer from course, either. We are adrift, fateless.

But I can talk in the market about dragon chancellors, and folk will chuckle. I do not wake fearing the iron fists on my door. In this world— why not?

Why not a world where the great wyrm-of-wyrms lies dead?

I opened the shutters today, and I refuse to shut them. The babble of street voices, and the ballista-quiet, is rare enough that I will not waste it.

—

Dear Jehan,

It is, I feel, a bit naive to celebrate what might or might not be a true victory, but— I suppose I cannot deny the infectious enthusiasm.

The days have been spent chopping, peeling, mashing, and preparing every scrap of food that every wife on the street has in her stockpile. Avenelle sent her son with a rabbit; a good woman, knowing I have naught to make beyond broth and bread. It will cost my store of spices dearly, but we will eat well enough to last through the year.

I am exhausted, and my throat is raw from talking.

—

Dear Jehan,

We burned a fire through the night, till well past the dawn. The tables were loaded with what we had, which was poor fare, but put together became… well, enough.

Durenaux brought out his father’s lute and Gemma played a reel. The lads and lasses pair off and danced wild in the square. The miller brought out a keg of cider, hoarded from before the frost, and tapped it to share. It was bitter, and a little sour, but I have not tasted apples in… years.

A few men offered me a turn around the fire, but I shook my head and let them leave disappointed.

None of them were you, and you were what I wanted. I wanted you hand at my back, and your hand on mine, and your mad grin while you dragged me into the dance.

This was not that. But it was warm, and welcome.

—

Dear Jehan,

My head aches. Cider was a mistake.

—

Dear Jehan,

Today, we cleaned the rest of what was left a mess after our celebrations.

I say “we,” and for once, I am not sarcastic. The street was still lively, in its way, and there was an air that all hands were needed, and welcome. I passed my trash to a jaunty irregular (that’s the ones with the metal pouches and the muskets, the ones with the swagger), and helped an overrun goodwife who was left in charge of more children than she could count.

I ache in small ways, but the sun seemed warmer than I remember, and I will not question it. Just this once.

—

Dear Jehan,

Spent the day in bed. The Archbishop Himself couldn’t have moved me. I crave tea, to drink in bed, but there is none of that to be had, and no one to make it for me.

—

Dear Jehan,

A slow day, but not one spent in bed. Cooking, sharpening my few knives until I could smooth out the nicks and scrapes, scrubbing the pots. Sorting and re-arranging, but at a snail’s crawl. The walls want for whitewash, but I haven’t the strength for that Daniffian task.

—

Dear Jehan,

We are getting scattered news; the dragons are shattered, truly, this time. The Parliament will allow common folk to take seats. Lord Aymeric will be its head, as chosen by _rule of majority_ not by inheritance.

For all that the news was grand and lofty, much was said and little was done today. I have a pile of garrison coats to patch, but there seems no rush for them. 

They are passed to me after laundering, so I do not see the worst of it, but the stains tell a story. Some of these chi— these men and women did not walk home. That, at least, cannot shake me any longer; that’s a familiar truth. I mend their coats even so, for their brothers and sisters and wives and husbands and mothers and fathers— perhaps their own children. I hope that these coats fall to pieces, unused.

—

Dear Jehan,

Cross and cold and snappish. I took no company today, not even just over the window-sill in passing. Perhaps tomorrow will set me in better sorts.

—

Dear Jehan,

A week passes, with no great news to report. I went to the market; I walked with Mariselle; I boiled the soup down to give it a little more flavor. I mended more arming-jackets than I can count on three hands.

I did go to the chapel, more for quiet than anything. It was deserted; the great blue window, the deacon’s pride and joy, had been smashed out with stones, and the wind howled through. Still, seeing Her visage was welcome, without service to drone over my time of quiet.

As much as has changed, some things do remain. As much as the church took of Her from me— my love, my reverence, my strength— She remains constant.

I wonder what you would make of this, of our new Ishgard. The world has opened wide, it seems, and only now do I realize how small my piece of it was.

I think about the green days, when Coerthas was not an ice-blasted hell. I think of the pasture where I grew up; the chestnut tree I’d meet you under, when the sun was just dipping low. I think about the nights I laid staring at the ceiling, praying to Her that morning would find you safe; I think about every time I heard the window creak as you returned, and every time you checked the wardrobe, beneath the bed, behind the door, before you kissed my forehead as I pretended to sleep. I think of your face, gaunt and haggard, and the bruises and cuts you did not explain.

Oh, my love. I wish you were here to see the sun again.

—

Dear Jehan,

A busy day, but for no greater purpose than simple housekeeping. I washed and mended until my thumb was sore and my knuckles ached, and the pile of garrison coats has shrunk to a respectable lump by my hearth. It is a good distraction.

—

Dear Jehan,

They are to open trade with other cities! I nearly cried when Mariselle’s niece told me the word. I will be able to buy the fine southern tea, lemons, fish, spices— perhaps not now, perhaps not this year, perhaps not the next— but still! But still.

Aside from that momentous news, the rest of the day pales.

—

Dear Jehan,

The markets buzz, and the merchants complain of open trade. I smile, and offer my condolences for their coffers, but I am bursting with joy. I am near-giddy with it.

It seems perhaps a little blasphemous, to be so buoyed by the thought of southern tea, and to care so little for the death of the dark eye Himself, but…

Southern tea will keep me warm, will ease my mornings, will give me rest. I can touch it, drink it. The death of the great wyrm is too large to touch, or taste, or drink. It changed everything. But it does not warm my hands in the morning.

—

Dear Jehan,

I return to mending, but I can sit with my door open, and watch the street as I work. For all my early doubts, the irregulars are good folk, and our street is lucky to have them making rounds. I feel safe enough to turn my back to the open door— while the sun is still out, anyway.

—

Dear Jehan,

The goodwives murmur more strange happenings; there is an influx of strangers in the city. They mostly keep to the Pillars and the Forum, not down the neighborhoods. I’m grateful. I am practiced at moving within the small world of our street, and courtyard, and market, and I would prefer to know most of the faces I pass, even if I crave their wares like a hungry beggar. 

—

Dear Jehan,

Sweeping, today. A little here, a little there, as my mother would say, still gets the job done. I’ve done the back room, where I sleep, and next will come the front room. 

It bothers me that the walls still have bare slats that beg for whitewash, but no matter how I contrive, there is no coin for that job, nor anyone to take it. Every mason, builder, plasterer, carpenter, tinker, cooper— anyone who can work wood and stone and metal— is paid too well rebuilding the houses of the merchant-folk to bother down here. Not that I can fault them; I mend those fur-trimmed cloaks, too.

Still. It would be nice. Instead, I return to shaking loose every spider in the rafters.

—

Dear Jehan,

Blessedly quiet day. Rose late, swept, mended, and fell to bed before I needed a candle to light my work.

—

Dear Jehan, 

While I do not truly _need_ it… a trip to the market seems to be in order. Mariselle stopped by yesterday, and slipped me a plum. Told me which stall sold them.

A _stall_ in the _market_ selling _plums._

It was difficult to keep myself from running out of the rooms right then, right there, as she told me, but I am— as you would fondly say— the most irritatingly composed woman in Ishgard. I thanked her for the tip, took the plum, and made as much haste as I could in counting my coins. Once she was safely on her way, I mean.

If I were the most irritatingly composed woman in Ishgard, I would not be bouncing on my toes by the washbowl at the thought of spending far too much coin on hard little plums.

—

Dear Jehan,

I have, in my possession, a wealth of plums. I could juggle plums, if I wanted. Not as well as you could, maybe, but I think I still have the knack.

The merchant was not a face I recognized; a thin little reed of man, with an accent not of Coerthas, or Ishgard, for that matter. For you, I’m sure it would have been nothing. For me, it was the first time I’d seen an outsider in… well. More years than I care to count.

He was perfectly polite and not at all what sermons make the pagan-folk out to be. No spitting on Halone’s name, no horns, no fangs, no odor. It’s strange; I rail so bitterly against the teachings, or how they’ve been re-wrought, but still fell onto the path they set for me. I expected a pagan; I bought plums from a man. It was that simple.

I did not totally take leave of my senses; I bought enough plums to fill my basket, paid in small bits shaved from good coin, and wore my oldest clothes. I think, were you here, you might regret teaching me such dire cautions 

—

Dear Jehan,

A nothing day. Accounts, and my own mending, now that the flood of garrison coats has passed. Perhaps I will do the wash tomorrow, if the weather holds. 

I ate a plum for a breakfast, a plum for midday, and a plum with dinner. For a woman who has done nothing much with her hours, I feel remarkably satisfied.

—

Dear Jehan,

Sick to my stomach, heaving. Spent the day in bed. Too many plums?

—

Dear Jehan,

Definitely too many plums. Mariselle came, concerned, when I did not knock at her door, and left laughing at my foolishness as I groaned in bed. She brought me bread, though, and sat with me as I floundered, and I can find it in myself to be grateful.

And I would do it again, in a heartbeat. But perhaps next time, I will buy _other_ fruits, so I do not spend an entire day in bed wretched.

—

Dear Jehan,

Taking the day slowly; I am not quite _wretched_ , but the pain in my stomach comes and goes. A lot of sitting, a little mending, and much drifting to sleep in my wooden chair by the hearth.

—

Dear Jehan,

A better day. I’m no longer bowed in two, trying to curl small enough to not feel my innards. I’m not sure I’ll be able stomach _looking_ at a plum any time soon without my stomach turning sour.

Spent most of the day cleaning the rooms, and airing them so my sick-smells weren’t as overwhelming. Washing the floors was a step beyond me, but the bed linen and wraps I soaked and scrubbed.

I feel as though I accomplished nothing, which is a wretched feeling— and then I recall _why_ I have accomplished nothing: the simplest acts feel as though they shuck me like new corn.

Tomorrow, though. Tomorrow I—

_[ The writing is smeared here, and the words become impossible to read. ]_

—

Dear Jehan,

I fell asleep on my account-book. Laugh all you like; I know you would. I’d never hear the end of it. There would be ear-pinching and impudent poking just to be _sure_ I was _truly_ awake this time. I know within a bell I’d be hitting you with a dishrag for it.

I would trade all the plums— all the fruit— in the world to hear you laugh at me again.

—

Dear Jehan,

Now that I can walk without bending, it seemed the time for an adventure. Well. Not an adventure by your standards. But for me, the market is adventure enough.

To… be truthful, I was beset with a different sort of gripe yesterday. The grey and moody sort of gripe, where I can settle on nothing and my thoughts disquiet me. Where the rooms seem to close in tight until I cannot breathe for thinking about what used to fill them. Who used to fill them. And then I want to crawl back into bed and pretend I am sick because being sick and miserable is better than simply being miserable. An adventure, small as was, seemed the right sort of medicine.

Someone— I forget who, a mason’s wife, maybe— mentioned the market in the far west square was host to _new_ merchants. Without saying as much, _new_ has come to mean people like the reed-thin foreign man selling plums. Fury knows none of our folk are well enough situated to open new stalls. So I put on my middle-best dress and most solid boots, and went for a walk.

It was still very much the same market; covered stalls, slushy ground, muddy cobbles. The merchants, though, were as promised: unfamiliar. And their wares? Things I’d never seen, only heard of. And sometimes, not even that.

I think I heard a man selling a… bird? A pink bird. From Vylbrand, he said.

What a world we live in. How little I know of it!

I picked through trinkets for a good few hours, and haggled over a handful, but went home with nothing of any great note. Some thread, a few needles. The looking was what was important today, more than anything I could have carried home.

Except maybe a book.

I wish there were books I might read, now that I do not need to fear asking for them. I wish I had the books you left in your trunk; I am a fool for selling them. So many of the books are charred ashes, swept from the stoops, after the burnings. There’s precious few left in the city, and the foreigners weren’t selling any that I could find.

I am not much one for adventure, but… I think of a place beyond the snow and ice and endless cold, and…

I think of the money beneath my floorboards, and your pension, and what it might be like to… to visit the sea. Or a forest.

Well. It is a nice thought.

—

Dear Jehan, 

An inside day; a storm blew through the city, howling through the spires. For once in the past few months, the keening outside the door was only the wind.

I am glad and grateful for my hearth, and my shutters, on days like this. I spent the day in my chair, dozing. My knuckles ached, as they do with bad storms, so the mending will wait.

—

Dear Jehan,

As always, the day after a truly fierce storm, the children are out in the streets, making snowballs and sliding on boards down the gutters. I leaned to watch them on the sill, and was nearly hit by an errant missile for my trouble. It makes me smile. Not every change that has come to Ishgard is a bad one.

—

Dear Jehan,

Found myself restless, out of sorts. Unsettled. Or, unable to settle. I went for a walk, finally, and found myself back in the far-west market, a good pace away from the rooms.

In my memory, even just a few days old, it had gotten more muted, more grey. It was, if anything, livelier than I’d remembered. Someone was playing a reel, and had a cap out for coin. It felt almost like a festival day between the stalls.

I hadn’t meant to come, so I brought no coin; a sound and sensible decision I regretted wholeheartedly. There were honey apples, and dusty casks of wine from the south, and _books,_ books that were not the Enchiridion or the book of saints or a book of verse. I was seized with the need for them, consumed like kindling, and it was all I could do to master it.

I was able to keep my head bowed in service for near eight years— no, for much longer, really. I was able to smile politely to every brother and sister of the church, despite the bitter worm that sat in my heart. It never troubled me to exercise that calm. But the thought of new books, books from foreign lands, books of stories and recipes and history, and no one, and no thing, to call me to account— and I am undone.

Well. It is no matter. I will simply tighten my resolve.

—

Dear Jehan,

Another restless day, but I have made good. I will make good. Mended a full basket and then some.

—

Dear Jehan,

I bought one of the foreign books. Wretched. I am wretched. But I regret nothing. I can barely write I am so aflame with excitement to read it.

—

Dear Jehan, 

I have finished the book.

Is this how you felt? Is this why you were always jiggling your leg on snowy days, always ready for the next steps, always scanning the street? Is this why you took the demotion to quartermaster, with no regiment to serve? Is this why you could not bear to stay in the green valley with the chestnut trees, why you had to come here?

Where would we be if you had not—

I feel helpless. I am the most infuriatingly composed woman in Ishgard. Thoughts of standing on a ship at dawn do not belong to _me_ . No, no. It's worse than that. I'm not sure that I am _me_ , anymore. That the me I know, the me I am, hasn't been consumed by something, someone, else. I don't understand. I want to see these things, the things in the book, the places—

—

Dear Jehan,

Better sorts today; I took things slowly, at my pace. 

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be different. I know. I _know_. It’s like the dress, my blue dress. I’ve danced this reel once already. Wearing something new does not make me less me, does not change my memories, does not water them down, does not make me forget you. Silly, of course. But true.

Reading the foreign books— I crave another immediately— does not make me less me, either. Wanting… no, more than wanting. Burning to read stories, to see paintings, to hear songs of far-away lands is not wrong. There is no punishment for that. There will be no knock in the night. And it does not make me… no longer myself, to want things like this. And perhaps… perhaps I did want this, all along, like a bed of dry grass. And now the new stalls in the foreigner’s market simply lit it all aflame. 

I will continue at my pace. I will. It is the most topsy-turvey thing to suddenly wake and find a hole in your heart for something you have never had, never wanted, before.

—

Dear Jehan,

Spoke to the goodwives a street over; traded a recipe for the sisters’ bread for a green stew. Made soup. Sewed pants. Did accounts. Went to bed. Have never felt more dreary, writing this.

—

Dear Jehan,

Saw Mariselle and her daughter today; they are in good health. Her daughter hinted around being taken as a lady’s maid for a merchant’s wife, and I wish her the best of it. I do not think it will be what she dreams, but… well, perhaps. And she is young.

I sat with them and sewed a while, but felt like I was seeing them from behind thick glass, warped, with bubbles in the panes. They were right there, and yet, there was an invisible distance. I am most certainly making something of nothing, and being a miseryguts because I cannot immediately have the thing I want.

—

Dear Jehan,

Went the market; our market, not the far-west one. Bought an orange (just the one). Listened to a man with fiddle for a few tunes.

It was good.

—

Dear Jehan,

Received a nice sum for a parcel of mending; shirts, mostly. Made bread.

—

Dear Jehan,

Have been drifting, the last… little while? Few days? Week?

Since you… since you were taken, I have done well. I follow my path; I cook, I sew, I walk, I nod and feign listening. And always, that has been enough. I have had enough. Not all, not everything, but enough.

I felt adrift before this, in our new Ishgard. Now I feel swept to sea.

Look at me. Describing things like being “swept to sea.” It’s in me, like a sickness. This yearning to go somewhere else, be someone else.

I used to pray, by our bed, to leave this place. When things were at the very worst, when it seemed there would be no respite, I prayed that She would let me leave this place. But I never dreamed it was _possible,_ beyond Her final mercy. I never dreamed of _how_. I never dreamed it would be good, only that it would be not-here.

And now our Ishgard is not so bad. Even down here in the lower city, things are better than they were.

But it is still cold. It is still dark. And now it seems so very narrow. 

—

Dear Jehan,

Still out of sorts. Writing disquiets me more than quieting me, so I refrain.

—

Dear Jehan,

I visited the airship port today. In the Pillars. Even in the new Ishgard, I made sure to wear my finest dress— the blue and cream. It would be a poor joke to be ejected as a vagrant while I go to moon over airships.

I have been to the Pillars before, but only under cover of night, to deliver mending at the servants’ doors. It is quite lovely during the day, even if I kept an eye over my shoulder the whole time. I may be foolish, but not uncautious.

They are not so elegant as sea-ships; at least, not the pictures of sea-ships. The big round hulls make them rather graceless in the air. Still, they are a marvel.

—

Dear Jehan,

I have been avoiding writing this. Foolish. Somehow, if I put it on the page, it became more real. As long as I never wrote it, I wasn’t thinking it. Wasn’t doing it.

But I am.

I have been asking, whenever I go to market, about merchant caravans. Where they go. When they go. How one gets from place to place. What passage might be, if one were to go by porter, and if one might travel by stage.

The answer is… high. For me. It would be a month of mending, with some comfortable breaks. But I have your temple pension, and I have been mending furiously. It would not be everything I have, to go.

But it would mean leaving the rooms. Our rooms. Selling my things; the heavy ones, and the finer ones. The wardrobe you wrestled up the stairs. The plates. The pots. My linens, dearly bought. The iron. The table. Our bed.

It gives me pause, losing the _things_ in trade for… possibility. The unknown. It bites me, chases me, this need to see, to be, to go, but the practical reality drags me to earth. I am still unsure.

—

Dear Jehan,

Sleepless night. Read bits of the foreign book, again.

  _… and over the hill we saw green, green, miles of it! And beyond, a great smoking mountain. We thought, at first, it was a storm on the horizon, all black and heavy. But the mate sayd, “Nay, ‘tis a fire-mount. The islands are born of them, rising from the sea.” I think he’s had a bit much of his whiskey ration, ask me._

—

Dear Jehan,

Drifted between tasks today, with every one taking just a fraction longer than it should. Sleep would likely cure this particular ailment.

 —

Dear Jehan,

Woke in my chair; fell asleep mending. Dropped my needle somewhere; the floorboards own it, now.

Cannot shake this… haze. The only thing that can burn it clear is the thought of _elsewhere._ I am still unsure.

—

Dear Jehan, 

Went to visit the airship port again today. Thankfully still unbothered. 

Mariselle visited, I think, while I was out. There was a covered basket on my stoop, covered with a hand-cloth I’d stake a needle was her making. It was a handful of popotoes, and a loaf of bread.

She is very dear to me, Mariselle. She has been at my shoulder since Vanielle brought home your ring. She was very kind when I was at my lowest, lowest point. To simply uproot myself from her life would be cruel. I will not do that to her.

In a way, composing the shape of a farewell makes me… more certain. Not wholly certain, never wholly certain. But firmer, because admitting what I plan to someone means I can no longer pretend it is simply an idle thought.

I am reminded of our endless services on the subject of draconic sin. _It starts with thoughts, which become words, which become deeds._

—

Dear Jehan,

I took myself, and my finest pot, and my nicest linens, to see Mariselle. Her daughter was out, perhaps with her merchant ladyship, so we sat alone in her kitchen as she moved between tasks.

She knew, of course. Of course.

“You’ve been gone a long while, Lottie,” she said. “You just didn’t know it till now.”

I won’t write all of it. We held each other, and I wept. And I gave her my pot, and my linens; it is easier to bear, knowing they rest in the home of a friend, to be loved and used and passed to her daughter when she and her beau finally move into rooms of their own.

And it is not so dire as I thought. I may go, and follow whatever strange fire burns at me, but I can return whenever I wish. I am not so alone in this as I believed.

—

Dear Jehan,

I have counted every coin twice, and even purchased a travelling bag. And then sold it back. And then purchased it anew. Perhaps more than once.

(The merchant found me comical, coming back four days running, to buy the same bag.. “Argue with your husband, missus?” she asked. “No, no, only with myself,” I told her.)

“Who is this?” you would say. “Who is this woman? Surely, it’s no wife of mine.” I can hear it, almost. I wish you were here to argue me out of this, tell me the dangers, number them for me. 

But you wouldn’t, would you? I am thinking of you with your face gaunt, in your black cloak, coming in from the snow with a shine in your eyes. I am thinking of you holding me close in the night when we heard shouting. I am thinking of the blurry, teary memory your back, shoulders set, wearing no helm— no helm!— as you set off that last time. I am thinking of the dregs of our days, the very last of them.

It shames me how deeply I have dwelt on these bottom-gutter days, the worst of our hours together. It shames me that I have done what I fear most— I have made you into a solemn, grim-faced saint, dusty and dry, who would chastise me for yearning upward, outward. You would never. You could never. You were wild and stupid and heedless for me, and only for me, and I was the drudge you dragged out of her little hamlet into the sun.

If you had seen this new Isghard, you would have purchased passage away months ago. Hells, you would have packed me up in the night and simply taken me along. You were never one to shy from adventure, and you never needed a reason to take chance— not till the very end. You loved this city more dearly than I ever have, but even I cannot truly believe you would have stayed, through all of this. Anything like that I have ever written, ever said, ever thought, is just an excuse for my own timid nature.

I miss you, even still. I will always miss you. I miss your warm hands, your face, your scarred shoulders. I miss your walk, your laugh, you dirty boots. I wish I could leave crocuses on your grave, empty as it is.

But I cannot. And—

And perhaps there is no need. I wear your ring around my neck, always; why go to an empty grave when I need only thread my finger through your ring anytime my thoughts pass to you?

You will be with me, always, forever, until She sees fit to bring us together into our final end.

But I will not carry on creeping, hiding, mending, as my back grows more stooped and my hands grow more gnarled. I will see the sea, and the shore, and the mountains, and the green valleys. I will see something beyond the snow. 

And I will think of you, always, always, my love.

Always.

_— A. C._

 

**Author's Note:**

> this was written and edited over the course of about 5-6 months and finally finished in December. i'm positive i fucked up the lore every which way, but c'est la vie, it's finished now.
> 
> originally, every time our protagonist mentioned a recipe, I included an approximation of the medieval equivalent recipe as an entry, but that ended up on the cutting room floor because she would have had no need to write those things down; she would simply remember them.


End file.
